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Source: DICOBE-00645 – Beth G – 5 STATE CONF – 1979-07-07.mp3 File: dicobe-00645-beth-g-5-state-conf-1979-07-07.mp3 Duration: 01:16:40
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As I said, she is a very delightful lady, and I now give you Beth G. from Brecksville, Ohio. Hi, everybody. My name is Beth G., and I am a very, very grateful alcoholic. And I just, I, it's special. I think it's great to be sober. I, I think not necessarily sober in being up here. I, I'll tell you, the only reason I am standing up here is because I got on my knees, like I always do, for a lot of reasons, and especially before I try to tell you what happened to me and what it's like now.
And when I bent down in front of the commode to ask God for help, I put my knees through my stockings. And so I didn't have enough time, so I sprayed them with hairspray, and my legs are starched, and they're holding me up and supporting me. This is another place I have found out where you don't forget where you came from. The perspiration is pouring down my back, my underwear is soaking wet, and I have delirium tremors, and that's enough of that for now.
I don't know any jokes. I, I listened last night to Tom, and I, I thought Ada was beautiful this morning. But usually when you're asked to, to lead at a place like this, a lot of people have a lot of jokes, and I don't know any. I'm, I'm still a quick forgetter. That's one reason I have to keep coming back, and jokes just don't stay with me. But something that does stay with me and stays with me 24 hours a day is the fact that, yes, things have gotten better.
You know, that's, that's a wonderful promise that you people made to me in Alcoholics Anonymous when I first walked through the door. Terribly sick and looking for something, wanting something so badly, and, and by the grace of God and you people, I am getting better today. I had a phone call this morning at 8 o'clock, and it was my daughter from, from Brecksville, which is a suburb of Cleveland, and, and Annie said, Mama, just tell him it does get better, and tell him it works.
And that coming from a child who was fantastically terrified, not frightened, she was terrified of me, just a little over seven years ago, that to me is, is really something. She also said, it's kind of lonely around here without you, Mom, when you're coming home. My boys are away and my other daughter is away, and so she's there all by herself. You did tell me things would get better. You never promised me anything else.
You told me very simply that I had a disease that is called alcoholism, not alcohol-wasm, and I'm going to have it until the day that I die, and you have no cure for it. You couldn't give me a pill, and you couldn't give me a shot that was going to take it all away and, and make it go bye-bye, and I was going to be able to carry on with a social drinking bunch. And, and you just said, if you do a few certain things, Beth, things will get better.
And, and I found out a lot. I found out a lot of things that you meant. I found out that, that today I, I don't have to run anymore. I don't have to escape into the neck of a bottle. I don't have to escape into a bottle of pills. I don't have to frantically pack my suitcase and tell everybody I'm leaving for the thousandth time, the way I was always doing, when I was drinking, but I can more or less bloom where I'm planted.
I can stay there, and I can face the happenings that come into my life in a 24-hour period. I also have found out something else, that I have really not gotten without, outside of my sobriety, anything that I have wanted since I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. But 24 hours a day, I've gotten everything that I needed in order to get through that day. If I keep on doing these few certain things, it hasn't been all that easy for me.
There's a lot of things that have, that have come into my life in the nows of each day, but I've had to find, to find myself, I've, I've had to get to meetings, I've had to do all the things that you told me to do.
[00:05:01]
The first most important thing that I can ever remember anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous saying to me was, you know, stay away from the first drink a day at a time, and, and things will be better. That was the first thing you told me out of five very important things you said to remember. This was very difficult for me, because I didn't understand that it was the first drink. You know, I, being the little old sherry wine, you know, suburban housewife drinker, I thought it was like the fourth gallon of wine a day that really knocked me cuckoo, and, and some old-timer put it in a love old-timer.
Boy, they are a, they're a wealth of knowledge if we listen to them. And, and he, he said to me, look kid, it's very simple. It's the engine that kills you, not the caboose. And if you don't believe me, go sit out in the railroad track and just see how you feel after the engines run over you, you see? You're not going to care what the caboose does. It's the first drink. And I could understand it. I could understand it now because, you know, I wasn't that fuzzed up to know what would happen if an engine ran over me.
There wouldn't be much left. And there certainly wouldn't be much left to me anymore if I picked up that first drink. I use that today. I use that today in my way of life because I have gotten to the point in my very short, short few years of sobriety that, that I realize when self-pity comes into my life. I know when I start to resent somebody. I, you know, I'm not that, that stupid. And, and right now is when I have to put a hold on that, those first feelings right now.
Because the first feeling, first negative feeling can really develop into something for me today. And, and I can't live in the 24 hour a day period. I couldn't stay away from the first drink. For 24 hours. I had to do it right now. And, and this helped me. And it helps me survive today. Right now is all I am interested in or concerned about. Not what's going to happen a minute from now. Not what happened a minute ago.
But right now. Because I found out something about myself and about my thinking and the way that I am. And I'm not talking for Alcoholics Anonymous up here. I, I'm just trying to tell you how I work my program, what happened to me and, and how you guys have supported me so beautifully in the last seven years of my sobriety. Right now, I have the feelings. Right now, I can do something about it. And, and right now is, is the time to really be concerned about if you've got to be concerned about anything.
And, and so that first drink right now has helped me even today with the negative thinking. And, and the second thing that you guys told me to do was to go to meetings. But this is a classroom. And this is where, if you take the cotton out of your ears and you shove it in your mouth, you're, you're going to hear one thing of value, one thing of value to take home with you. Now my sponsors told me I was too rattly-brained to remember a lot of stuff.
In fact, I was too rattle-brained to even remember one thing out, out of a meeting. So they supplied me with a pad of paper and a pencil, and they said when you hear the one thing of value, and we're not going to hit you in the, in the ribcage with our elbow, and we're not going to kick you under the, under the chair with, with our foot or anything else like that, you'll know when it hits you. You'll feel it.
It'll be a gut feeling when something somebody says. And they said it doesn't necessarily have to come from the lead either. It can sound, come from something if you stick around at a meeting after it's over with and have that social time, and it can come from comments. And, and so listen. So here, listen. And, and then take the pencil, and when the one thing of value hits you, write it down. And then go home and rewrite it down.
And, and I did what they said because I wanted to stay sober more than I wanted to be drunk. I had a notebook like this, and I loved to leaf through that thing. The one most important thing that I pick up from a meeting is written down in that notebook for every meeting that I have attended since I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. And strangely enough, some of the things that struck me in the beginning of my sobriety I am using right now.
And I have never thrown anything into a wastebasket that was valuable enough for me to write down, and rewrite down,
[00:10:00]
in that notebook of mine. This is a place where I felt comfortable for the first time in my life. I really felt comfortable. This is a place where, where I learned that, about that handshake. You know, that handshake is very, very important to me. That handshake to me at my first meeting said a lot. It said, I love you. I care about you. I'll help you. I don't care where you come from. And I don't care what you did.
And I don't care where you live. And I don't care what kind of money that your husband's making. The only thing I care about is you. And that handshake means the same thing to me today. There's an awful lot of love that goes through that. An awful lot of meaning. Meetings are a place where I learn to get phone numbers. That I learn people's names. And my sponsor said to me, you can learn that for the first time in your life to be yourself.
You know, I wore a mask all my life. I always put on a different mask for these people and a different mask for those people. And I was never myself because I didn't know who myself was. But right here is where I learned that. And I learned when I walked through those doors that I could be honest enough with you that if something was bothering me way down deep on the inside and you asked me how I was, how are you?
If I walk into a meeting and something's bothering me and somebody asks me, how are you? And if I say, oh, everything's fine and beautiful and wonderful and marvelous, I'm not going to get any help. And I can't do that anymore anyway. I cannot hide behind any kind of a mask, behind any kind of a wall, behind anything. I have learned today that to be myself and to be in touch with who you are and wear this mask and know what to act out for and what I have learned is that they all are a part of the process of filling in what we go through and those things that you have fucked up and learned and you'll figure it out and they're a part of you.
We can pick up things from each other and this is so very very important it's the individuality. I also learned through that serenity prayer a lot of things about individuals and it was a wonderful man in the Cleveland area who explained that serenity prayer to me because I didn't understand it I didn't know what I could accept and what I could change and what meant about this wisdom stuff and he said to me, you know the things that you accept that you can't change as any human being in any situation that you are not involved in everybody is different everybody is unique everybody has something to give and if you try to mold them and change them into what you think they should be like individuality is going to be gone accept them for what they are look for the good look for the good the heck with the bad people look for the bad and us for so darn long and so I started looking for the good in everybody and in every situation and I started accepting things that I couldn't change which was everybody and every situation that I wasn't involved and this was awful hard at home still is sometimes I like to change them sometimes but I can't and the only thing I can change is right here and that's what he said and that does not take courage Beth it takes guts to look inside here and after the fog is lifted and after the screwing up place up here starts to level off then the work begins and it's right here and this is what you can change the only thing you can change and it's up to you to do that and he said my dear and I think my wisdom to know the difference comes with when I make a mistake I know when I try to mess around in somebody else's life and the kickback is always fierce and I try to learn from my mistakes that's another great thing about AA we can make mistakes and we can learn from our mistakes and we don't have to be perfect that was great because I tried to be perfect in so much for so long and I never could do it and the meetings where I picked this up they're a fantastic thing and then the third thing I was told was to find a power greater than myself
[00:15:00]
this was difficult And I Was Taught Some Pretty Good Values When I Was A Kid Growing Up, Basic Values, And All These Values Started To Change When I Picked Up The First Drink, And As The Values Changed, God Went Out Of My Life, And When You Said A Power Greater Than Myself, And I Hear This, God Read, And It Went Through Me, I Didn't Like It, And My Sponsors Again Said To Me, Hey, You Know, We Said A Power Greater Than Yourself, We Didn't Say God, Take Something Out That Is Functioning, And Moving Around, And Doing What It Should Have Been Doing All Its Life, And You Know, There Is Some Guy In The Cleveland Area, That The Power Greater Than Himself Was A Radiator, For About A Year, Now The Thing Turned On When It Was Supposed To, It Turned Off When It Was Supposed To, I Mean It Was Doing Its Job, And He Hadn't Been Doing Anything For Years, And I Didn't Pick A Radiator, I Picked You Back, I Liked What You Had, I Really Did, I Liked The Smiles On Your Face, I Liked The Look Of Your Eyes, I Could Sit At Meetings, And I Could Hear That Your Lives Were At All A Bowl Of Roses, Because It Is Life, It Is Living, And There Are Things That Come Into Our Lives Every Day, But In Spite Of All Of That, You Looked Like You Were At Peace With Yourself, And I Wanted That, Boy I Wanted That So Bad, I Also Liked Your White Eyeballs, And I Still Don't Have Those, But I'm Trying Today, I Can't Change, I'm Going to Accept It I Guess, But Anyway, I Liked You, And I Hung On To You, And I Believed In You With Everything That I Had Inside Of Myself, And A Wonderful Thing Started To Happen To Me, For The First Time In My Life I Started To Believe In Myself, Because I Believed So Strongly In You, I Started To Believe In Me, I Started To Feel Like A Somebody Instead Of A Nobody, I Started To Feel Like Yeah I Was A Little Bit Worthwhile, And It Got Better, It Got Better, And All Because Of You, All Because Of You, And Then Very Slowly And Because Of A Pair Of Bedroom Slippers, Which I'll Tell You About A Little Later, I Switched Over Slowly, And I Don't Know When It Happened, But My Best Friend And The Person I Depend On The Most, Is My God As I Understand Him, Whom I Choose To Call God, Now I Am Not A Stumpjumper And A Holy Roller And All That Stuff, But I Have A Relationship With This God As I Understand Him, That I Don't Want To Give Up, And If Anybody Is Going To Move Away And Break This Relationship, It Is Going To Be Me And My Thinking, I Am Sure God Wouldn't Want To Do It, Now I Have Never Heard Him, I Have Never Seen A Thunderbolt, He Has Never Come Down In The Kitchen And Taken Me Out For A McDonald's Hamburger Or Anything Like That, But I Strongly Believe That He Is There, And It Is A Comfortable Feeling, It Is A More Comfortable Feeling At The Times When I Am Down In The Valleys, And There Are Valleys, There Are Valleys In Sobriety, And It Is In The Valleys Where I Feel The Pain, And It Is In The Valleys Where I Hang On Tighter To My God As I Understand Him And Feel That He Is Protecting Me When I Walk Through The Dark Places Of My Life In The Valleys That Sometimes I Must Go To, And It Is Here Because Of This Pain That I Am Able To Grow, Pain Is Growth, Pain In Any Form Makes Me Really Buckle Down And Really Sink My Teeth Into The Stuff That Might Be Missing And I Feel I Can Grow A Little Bit And Once Again Start Climbing The Peaks With My God As I Understand Him, He Is A Fabulous, Fabulous Guy, And He Has Never Given Me Anything Icky, Anything Ugly, Anything Rotten In My Life, It Is A Situation That I Can Make Very Icky And Ugly And Rotten If I Choose To Do To, And I Can't Today, My Sponsors Told Me Something, Things Aren't Going To Be As Lousy As You Think They Are If You Keep Your Attitude Up, Attitude Is Gratitude, I Was Told, I Try To Do The Best Job That I Can Do, I Make Mistakes, I Have Failings, Sure I Do, But I Try The Hardest That I Can A Day At A Time, A Minute At A Time, And Right Now In Order To Keep The Attitude Up And It Works, And Then You Guys Told Me The Fourth Thing To Do Is To Clean Up My Own House, Now This Was Hard Enough For Me To Do, Being A Woman Is Harder, It Is Tough, Tough To Go After Those Character Defects,
[00:20:17]
I Got So Many That All I Can Work On Is Like One A Month, I Got Lots Of Character Defects, But It Is Getting Better, It Is Getting Better, Work On Yourself I Was Told, Let The Other Person Alone, You Are The Only One That You Can Change, And A Lot Happened To Me During That Fourth And Fifth Step, I Got Rid Of All That, And Then I Could Really Start Going To Work, And Today I Am Very Conscious About Mistakes I Make, Today I Am Very Conscious At Night When I Go To Bed And Take My Inventory, A Little Bitty Thing Or Do Over The Last 24 Hours, I Know Where I Have Made My Mistakes And I Know What I Can Do About Them, And This Is Important To Me Today, I Have Seen Gossip Killed, Destroyed, Maimed, I Go And Visit A Gal Once A Month That Is In Lima State Hospital Which Is Not A Very Nice Place To Be In The State Of Ohio, She Is In The Fetal Position In A Corner She Is Sucking Her Thumb And She Doesn't Know Who I Am, I Know Who She Is, I Was Her Co-Sponsor Six Years Ago, And She Had To Go In Some Place And Get A Child Of Hers Away From Her Alcoholic Husband And It Happened To Be A Bar, And When She Was On Her Way Out Some Wild Mouth Lime From AA Was Driving By, And I Know Enough Of You In This Room Are My Age To Remember The Game Telephone That We Used To Play When We Were Kids, This Woman Started, Told One Person Like If I Told Ray To Something And It Went All The Way Around The Room It Is Going To Come Out Totally Different From Mary, See What Came Out In The End Result Of All This Was That This Woman Came Out Drunk, Dragging Her Child, Beating Him As She Walked Across The Park, It Destroyed Her, There Was Nothing We Could Say To Her, She Didn't Have The Longevity Of Sobriety To Stand Up Against Something Like This, We Are Very Sensitive People Yes, But We Do Get A Little Bit Of Steel In The Backbone, But She Didn't Have It, And She Picked Up What Was To Become Her Last Drink, There Is A Last Drink You Know, There Is That Last One, The Last Drink That Makes God Cry And The Devil Laugh, And I Am Very Very Careful About Gossip Myself, I Don't Know My Sponsors Told Me Hey You Know Yeah Sure It Is Nice To Be Important But Never Forget Something It Is Very Important To Be Nice, And I Try Not To Forget That, And Anyway I Am Rattling Around I Got So Much To Do With Myself That I Don't Have Time, I Don't Have Time To Take Anybody Else's Inventory Hardly At All Anymore, And The Fifth And Final Thing I Was Told Is When I Had Something Of Value I Could Go Out And Help Another Alcoholic, And This Is Very Important What She Didn't Tell Me Is That It Comes Back A Hundred Fold, It Comes Back A Hundred Fold, And That Is Why We Work This Is How We Work Helping One Another Where A Lot Of Other Things Fail In The Disease Of Alcoholism, I Refuse To Do Things Anymore Like Build Walls I Can't, I Can't Today I Did It When I Was A Kid I Did It All My Life But Today I Got To Watch Out When I Am Walling Out And More Important I Got To Watch Out When I Am Walling In, If I Build A Wall You Are Out There I Am In Here And Yeah Maybe I Could Get Along For A While With A Big Book And With My Notebook And Things Like That Maybe, But Not For Very Long Because I Know Myself Well Enough To Know That In The Gutter Area Of Myself Which Is Right Between These Ears The Thinking Is Going To Start To Go Without The Contact And This Is Why I Can't Build A Wall Because I Can't Wall You Out And I Can't Stay On The Inside, I Built A Wall When I Was A Kid A Big One And I Don't Know Why And I Really Don't Care Why Today, And I Doubt Very Much Though Sometimes I Wonder It Might Be Because I Grew Up In The Fumes Of Alcoholism, Everybody That I Knew Drank, Christmases, Thanksgiving, Easter, In Between Times Everything Was A Nightmare, It Killed Two Of My Aunts, My Mother Has Been Sober For Six Years, I Had An Aunt That Was Within 24 Hours Of 19 Years Of Uninterrupted Sobriety And After Five Weeks Plus Of Not Going To Meetings Of Feeling Complacent She Picked Up A Drink, I Pray For Her Every Day,
[00:25:14]
My Grandfather Died Of Cirrhosis Of The Liver, He Was Under The Christmas Tree Dead When I Went Down As A Child Of Six Years Old As He Was Santa Claus That Left Me For Christmas, I Have Two Uncles That Are Living On Skid Row Out In California And That's Just One Side Of The Family, I Won't Go Into The Other Side, My First Father Was Murdered Before I Was Born, He Was An Alcoholic And At The Age Of 24 He Had To Have A Drink And He Was In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time, And So When I Grew Up Alone With My Mother Until I Was Nine Years Old When My Mom Remarried Again But Before That, Before She Remarried I Felt Different, I Allowed Myself To Feel Different, I Felt Different Because I Didn't Have A Father, I Felt Different Because Kids Called Me Names, Kids Are Cruel You Know, And I Allowed This To Happen To Me And When My Mother Remarried And The Finest Man He Is Just Terrific, But I Didn't Allow Myself To Have Any Kind Of A Happy Relationship With This Man Although He Tried Desperately, I Didn't Allow It Because By This Time I Started Liking Feeling Different, And Then I Got The Poor Me's Because I Could Identify Myself With Cinderella And Instead Of The Wicked Stepmother I Had This Stepfather And He Was The Kindest Man Going But I Used To Make Up Stories About Him, I Started Not Liking Myself Very Much, And I Got More Sneaky And I Got More Cunning And I Lied More And I Fought To Get What I Wanted And I Climbed To The Top Of The Ladder And I Really I Didn't Know What I Wanted To Be And Where I Wanted To Go But I Was Always Going To Be The One That I Wanted To Be, And I Never Found It And I Used People And The One Thing That Stuck With Me From Out Of My Childhood Was That I Never Wanted To Drink. I Was Never Going To Drink And Have My Children Worry If They Were Going To Stumble Over A Body When They Took Some Friends Home To School.
I Never Wanted My Children's Life To Be The Nightmare That I Had. I Hated Alcohol. I Didn't Like What It Did. And I Married Bruce In 1955 He Came Riding Along On His White Horse And I Snagged Him. And I Thought Then I Cared About Him, See? I Really Did. I Thought I Cared About Him. You Guys Are The Ones That Really Taught Me What Love Is. I Really Didn't I Guess Know How To Love Or Really Care Before I Came Into Alcoholics Anonymous But I Thought I Did And I Thought Too That Bruce G. Would Make Things So Different For Me And That I Wouldn't Feel So Awful On The Inside Anymore And Maybe I Could Start To Be Happy. I Hardly Ever Smiled. I Got To The Point Where I Hardly Ever Smiled.
And So I Married Bruce. Now I Tell You Something That's A Stubborn Scotchman. And Everything Out Of Him Was Like Sneezing Water Out Of A Rock. And I Wasn't Happy. I Didn't Allow Myself To Be Happy Because I Wasn't Getting My Way. And The Poor Me Set In And I Totally Resented Being Married. And When My First Daughter Was Born A Year And A Half Later I Resented. Resented Her. I Resented Having To Do Things At A Certain Time. And When You're A Mother You Know You Got The 10, 2, And 6 Jazz. If You Want To Change It Around I Did. I Was Doing The 11, 3, And 5 To See If It Would Make Any Difference. And It Never Did. And I Resented. I Resented It. I Did Not Like Responsibility.
And Although I Did Not Like Responsibility I Had To Be Responsible. Well She Was Concerned But I Hated It. Every Minute Of The Time. And In 1957 When We Were At A Party Some Man Said To Me Why Don't You Learn How To Laugh And To Smile And Enjoy Yourself And Let Loose And Cut Loose Why Don't You Have A Drink. Now All The Back Horror Left Me. Everything. I Didn't Think About That Anymore. I Was Concerned About Me. Yeah I Wanted To Feel Better And Maybe This Was The Answer. And I Picked The Bottle Up And I Never Put It Down Until March The 4th Of 1972.
I Was Not A Social Drinker. I Don't Know What It's Like. The Closest I Ever Got To Becoming A Social Drinker Was When Somebody Said Would You Care To Have A Drink Or I Think I'll Have Another Drink And I Say So Shall I. That's The Closest I Ever Got To It. I Drank. I Got Drunk. And I Immediately Got Into Trouble And In 5 Years Time. After 5 Years. Five years time, after five years, had a laugh, Bruce G. backed me into a corner, put his finger this far from my nose, and said,
[00:30:04]
Hey kiddo, I think you have a drinking problem, and you better do something about it, or I'll cut off your allowance. Or I'll cut off your allowance, were the words, that made, forced me, the first time, to go around AA. Now in those five years, I didn't think I was that bad. I did not think my life had become unmanageable. Yes, I was beginning to wonder if maybe I wasn't drinking a little bit too much.
Because, but I could make up excuses. I could make up excuses for everything I did. I could deny anything. Talk about denial, my God, I had a habit of painting wine bottles. I was a wino. I discovered wine, Italian Swiss Colony, Sherry, it did something to me. It rockets you, it got me where I wanted to go faster, and the other stuff, and anyway, I worked into the budget cheaper, and anyway, I called it the housewife's delight, because you can get it anywhere, Lord, it's in the supermarkets, it's in the department stores, in Cleveland, there's even a town near me that has it in the hardware store.
You go in there to get oil, you really can get oil. It's all over the place. And I liked it because wine was convenient. It came in the large economy size. You know, the kind you buy Monday and it's going to last you a week, until suddenly you're going back and buying another one on Tuesday. And then it comes in the long skinny ones. Now these long skinny ones, I could paint white. I did this. I painted them white, and I'd hang them out the second story window on a white rope.
And I'd go out there and look, and I couldn't see them. See, it's easier to hoover on the second story of a house, and draw in the rope, and take a slug, than it is to have to turn off the vacuum, run downstairs, figure out where in the heck did I hide that stuff this time in the basement, go grumbling around looking for it. It took too much time. So I'd paint these, and I'd hang them out the window. And Bruce G. took me outside, and he said, My God, Beth, what is that? And I, honest to Pete, honestly, I looked up there, and I said, What? I didn't see it.
I denied seeing that thing. Well, that quit. That quit. I had two more children. Had a little girl, a year and a half after Annie, Kimberly, who had a violent convulsion when she was a year old, falling to measles. And we had to put her in a private home, and she subsequently died when she was five and a half. I used it. I used it. Poor me. I didn't care how Annie felt. I was losing a sister to a private home. I didn't care how Bruce felt.
All I got was the poor me's out of this. I wasn't grateful for Annie. I wasn't grateful for the support that Bruce was trying to give to me. I wasn't grateful for the fact that Linda came along a year after this. The only thing that I used was the poor me. It let me drink more. And I could use this. I could excuse myself from any kind of action. After all, look at poor me. I got this kid in a little private home.
And I was not happy at all. And I felt, when he had backed me into the corner after those five years, that I really hadn't done that much. Sure, I was stealing stuff out of the house, and selling it, and trying to support my habit. Yes, I'd gotten nailed a couple of times at the supermarket for putting bottles in my pantyhose, and they fell out. And then I always wanted to be a blonde. Always wanted to be a blonde.
And I thought blondes were the dandiest thing. When you're a redhead, and you have, well, and you have freckles. And I really, Tom talked last night, how ugly he was. Dear God in heaven, when I was growing up with this red hair and freckles, it was something else. And I hated my freckles, too. I could really identify with that last night. Hated them. Tried SOS lemon juice. Chore girl, chore boy. Everything. Nothing worked.
Today, I feel the people with freckles have been kissed special in each place by God. Anyway, I always wanted to be a blonde. And I saw this commercial on television. And they had this blonde getting out of this bubbly stuff in a bathtub. You know, with some kind of an advertisement. And I thought, you know, if I do that, I'm going to look like she does. That's stinky thinking right away. I couldn't afford the bubbly stuff, so I filled the bathtub up with nine gallons of Italian Swiss Colony Sherry.
Got in. I didn't look like a blonde when they fished me out, out clear. Got in with a straw. But anyway, these are the kind of things.
[00:35:01]
Waste not, want not. These are the kind of things that I was doing that Bruce G. didn't like. Forging his name on checks, forging the bank. You know, going to the department store, charging up a $6,000 worth of stuff in an hour. And it all gets delivered and he'd say, where is this coming from? And I wouldn't know. You know, it was a mess. Anyway, so he backed me in the corner. And I went around Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time in 1962.
And I didn't like you guys. I didn't like you at all. I went to two meetings. Huh. And didn't like you. And I walked through those doors dishonest with my ears shut. And I wasn't willing to do a darn thing. I wasn't even willing to stick around your 90 days so you could refund my misery. I just left. I said I was pregnant with my son, Brucey. And I just was too sick to attend. No, thank you. I didn't want it.
I didn't think I was that bad. I'll clue you. You get that bad. I didn't think it would ever happen to me. I thought I could control it. I thought, you know, ha, this is all in Bruce's mind. The next time was when the neighbors got on my back a year later. I was leaving Brucey out in the baby buggy in rainstorms. Annie was trying to get to a kindergarten with no shoes on her feet, no sweaters, and in bad weather.
The kids were starting to become terrified of me. Bruce was going around in a nightmare. He's a traveling engineer, a sales engineer. He has 14 counties in Ohio to go. He couldn't stay home all the time. The neighbors can't bird dog when the doors are locked and the shades are pulled. And I tried the ultimate, the suicide bit. Huh. I didn't want to die. I was afraid to die. But I thought if I bled all over Bruce G.'s beige carpeting, maybe things would be different and he'd start noticing me.
Well, I cut too deep, naturally. And the cops got involved in all that mess, and so the neighbors got on my back and said, we're going to take those children away from you if you don't do something about your alcoholism and go to AA meetings. So I went back around AA for five months. One meeting a week for five months. Have you ever heard of a kid that passes from one grade to another that goes once a week to school?
Can't be done. Can't be done here either as far as I'm concerned. And I walked through those doors the same way, dishonest, not willing. And my ears closed up. And I didn't even keep an open mind. And I played a game with him. And to me, that is a horrendous time. When I was playing this big, fat game with you and trying to lie to you, good Lord, you cannot walk into a room of professional drunks and lie.
It doesn't work. And I didn't know that. And I was terrifying him at home. See, I'd been a very oral, oral person. And the oralness started to change into the physical violence. And I can remember Annie would say to the other children, she told me about this when I came into the program, when Bruce and Linda were in grade school with her, Annie would say, if you get sick in school, don't go home. Stay here and get sick.
Don't go home. Don't go home. And so I left from coming around you, and I had John, and things did get worse. The law got involved. You can't drive and drink forever without the law catching up to you. And I was in nine jails in suburbs of Cleveland. I don't see that anyone's better than the other, frankly. But I always got out of it. I always got out of it. I could always bat the baby blues and get out of it.
And Bruce got me out of it about three times. He got me out of a real doozer down in Akron. And there was assault and battery too. Well, the Summit County Sheriff wanted to take me home, and I thought to myself, my God, what are the neighbors going to think? You know, the neighbors probably just saying, hooray, hooray, why didn't you keep her? And so I hit him over the head with my wine bottle. I didn't know what else to do.
And he didn't like that. And so anyway, the judge gave me a choice, which was to be my final choice, 90 days in the workhouse or try Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't want to go to the workhouse. I didn't think I belonged. I thought I was too well-educated to go to the workhouse. I didn't think I was that bad. And besides that, I didn't like the stripes because they went around instead of up and down, and I didn't want to go to the workhouse.
[00:40:01]
And so I went around AA, played the same game as before, the one meeting a week. I lied to you. I drank six days a week. It was a nightmare. I threatened my family to the limit. And I had a little boy in 1968 that died eight days later of alcoholic convulsions. There wasn't anything that they could do. And the next four years were dynamite on wheels. And I don't have to tell you about that. You're here, obviously, because you have lived in the home with an alcoholic, as Ada so well described today.
Or you have gone the routes yourself. And if you're thinking about maybe life will be more beautiful out there with it, I got news for you. It isn't. You get very, very physical. You get, you terrify everybody that is around you as you sink deeper and deeper and deeper to that god-awful hellhole that nobody, nobody can reach you anymore. The thinking starts to go. And go good. Time becomes nothing.
You're in limbo all the time. I drank all the way around the clock. And when I couldn't get my hands on alcohol, I went into the cologne and into the rubbing alcohol. I'd do anything in order to drink because I had to drink in order to survive. I had to drink to live. And I did try easier, softer ways. I did. I went through a shrink. I lied to him. I lied to him. I was lying by this time so much that I was believing my own lies.
This is the point I got to. I could no longer tell the truth to anybody. And I made up stuff. And I did not tell one ounce of truth to anybody. Not even that shrink. You know, he's the only person I can't find to make amends to. That poor shrink went out of business. About, um… Well, my husband said about five months after, he wouldn't let me go to see him anymore. He just sort of dissolved in the space.
I've often thought about him. And to make amends to him. Poor man. I went to a minister. I lied to him. I went to a doctor. I said, I'm nervous. I'm terribly nervous. I've got to have something for my nerves. And this doctor, God bless him, has an uncle in Alcoholics Anonymous, saw his father died of alcoholism, and knew what I was, and looked at me and said, if you're so nervous, kiddo, when you leave this office, stop and buy a dirty book, go home, read it, and you won't be nervous anymore.
And I couldn't get Librium out of him. I couldn't get Valium. I couldn't get all those things. And so I went undercounter to the no-dose, sleepies, composed, quiet world. Oh, God. Ever take a quiet world and follow it by about half a gallon of sherry wine? You'll find out what third world war is going to be like. And it isn't plenty. Anyway, I descended into that terrible pit of despair. Total despair.
And the whole thing was, I was pulling everybody down with me that was in my family. No, I didn't go to bars and drink. I was afraid by this time what I would sell for the price of a drink. So I brought the Skid Row right into my own home. And I was in my family. No, I didn't go to bars and drink. I was afraid by this time what I would sell for the price of a drink. So I brought the Skid Row right into my own home.
And I laid under the bridge in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the living room, in the basement, anywhere. And I made those people come under there with me. And they didn't want to. It was a nightmarish experience for them. I don't know how they all survived. I just don't know. And on Christmas Eve of 1971, I tried to annihilate three members of my family. I had become a knife thrower. And by the grace of God, they survived it.
Christmas morning of 1971, when I stumbled downstairs, there were two neighbors down the street that were trying to clean up the mess. And one of them looked at me and she said, Why don't you die? Why don't you crawl into a hole and die like the animal that you have become? and die like the animal that you have become, and allow five other people to live. And the only way I could control that was to drink more.
[00:45:03]
I lost every sense that I had. I lost every bit of feeling that I had. I lost a lot of physical things too. My hair fell out and the wine sores came, and it got to the point that I slept in my own filth and vomit, and when the blood would run out of my ears, I was terrified and I drank more. On March the 4th of 1972, I was sitting at my kitchen table, in my same old bathrobe, and I was alone. I had been being left alone more and more and more.
And through a mind that no longer even knew what to do with a hot dog, a mind that didn't even know who half the people were that were in my house anymore, a mind that had become nothing but thinking about drinking, how to get it, where to hide it, how to destroy it, I was allowed to make a decision. Think about where you were when you were allowed to make a decision. And I say allowed to make a decision because it is by the grace of God and for no other reason that I am here today, because I know the shape that I was in.
I know what was the matter with me, and I know I was incapable of making any kind of a decision. Incapable of it. And yet, I made a decision that I wanted to do something with my life. I wanted to live, and I didn't want to die. And I would do anything, anything to stay away from alcohol or any kind of mind-altering drug because I knew something. Yes, I knew I was an alcoholic. I'd known that. But the most important thing that I knew was that my life had become unmanageable, and I was the one that was creating it.
I was the one that was doing it. My life had become unmanageable because of me. And everything nasty and dirty and ugly and rotten that had happened in my life, in my children's life, in Bruce's life, was because of right here, and I had no more excuses left. And I couldn't deny anything anymore. And I totally, at that point in time, surrendered. And I crawled to the phone, and I called my Aunt Jean in Chicago, and she said to me, What is the name of that old-timer that has never given up hope on you?
And his name is Jerry Jackson, and God love him. He died last year. Jerry had met me in 1962. Jerry taught me something that I hope I will never forget. In the nows of every day that you do not give up hope on any human being as long as they are breathing in and out. You never give up hope on any situation, even if it seems hopeless. And Jerry didn't come over to my house to see me. He'd come over and talk to my family.
And I don't know what he said to them. I do know that Bruce had the commitment papers for Lima State Hospital in January of 1972. What do you do with a potential killer and a destroyer and a violent person living in your home? And Jerry found out about this, and they had a conversation. And I will never know what was said, but the papers were never signed. I never found out about that until two years ago.
I came across the papers, and Bruce said, My God, I thought I threw those out. And I asked him, and he told me what had gone on. Jerry came over, and he said, You know, the road isn't going to be easy. Nothing in life that's worthwhile is easy. It's tough to be born. It's tough to die. And nothing in between that is worthwhile is really that easy. And he said, but I'll tell you what you do. If you take our hands and you come on the road of sobriety with us in the nows of each day, he said, I promise you something, Beth, that things will get better.
And if you stay away from that first drink in the nows of each day, you will never get drunk anymore. And if you never get drunk anymore by staying away from that first drink right now, wonderful things will happen to you. Wonderful things will happen to you. And I wanted to be sober more than I wanted to be drunk. So I took your hands, and by the grace of God, I've been on the road ever since. He got me these two sponsors.
Good Lord. They tried to get me into a hospital. I was really a wreck. My eyelashes had all fallen out. I still know these are false eyelashes. They're Mod 33 browns, if anybody knows. I can put them on in six seconds.
[00:50:01]
I hated to see what would happen to me when I was drinking and trying to get them on. God in heaven. Anyway, so they took me to meetings because they couldn't get me in a hospital. Rosary Hall at that time, the wing was closed. The woman's wing was closed. And the only other hospital around was St. Thomas, and they were full up for four weeks. And so they decided, these ladies, if they took me three and four times a day, then maybe I'd survive.
They said to me, nobody's ever died yet going to meetings, so come on. And we did go, and I got so tired. I got so tired. God, I tried to call them on the phone once I got a hold of them. They called me up like 15 minutes before they picked me up. And they said, we'll be there to get you, be ready, goodbye. And they'd hang up. And if I'd ever try to get them right back, the phone was either busy or nobody answered it.
I've learned that trick. And once I did get a hold of them, I said, I'm so tired. I said, Mary, I am so tired, I don't know what I'm doing. She said, if you think you're tired, what do you think we are? We'll see you in 10 minutes. Bonk. And that's the way it worked. And then I found out about those five things that I told you in the beginning. And I found out a lot of things from you people. And I found out that if you keep coming back and bringing the body, the brain is going to follow if you keep an open mind and you're willing.
And you're honest enough with yourself to know why you're here, you know. And all these things seem to stretch out. The moments stretch out into the day, and the day becomes the two, and the two becomes the month. And you keep getting better. And you get into it. My sponsor said to me, you know, dear, if you sit on your chair on what God gave you to sit on, don't expect AA to come to you and say, oh, isn't that nice.
Here you are, dear. Everything will be all right. It doesn't work that way. You've got to get up off what God gave you to sit on, and you've got to move the legs, and you've got to get active. Action is the name of the game. There's kitchen duty. My sponsor said to me, who in Sand Hill do you think starts the coffee? It doesn't come floating down from heaven, and the donuts don't march in the door two by two.
You know, somebody's got to do this. And there's lots of jobs to do. And if you get into it, you're going to feel a part of it. And this is when I learned something that's very, very important to me. My sponsor said, and by the way, while you're getting active with the body, remember this. Because I hadn't smiled for so long. My sponsor said, why don't you start to smile, dear. Then that will give your face something to do, and it won't get jealous of the rest of you.
I learned from you in meetings, not to say, why did this happen to me? I learned this especially over the last two years, because we had kind of a happening in our home over the last two years. And my children learned this. And in the time of a big thing that comes into your life, not to say, why me? Say, why not me? Why not me? I obviously can handle it. And I have learned something else from you people that has helped me to survive, that I will never put a question mark where God has put a period.
I cannot do that anymore. And as I kept coming back to your meetings, you told me about the 24-hour book and about the eye-opener and about the day-by-day book. And you told me about the little red book. And you told me the things to watch out for. And you told me about the big book. The big book. The big book. Warren Chisholm Sr., who is a fine old-timer, said to me one day, Hey, Beth, there is a question that cannot be answered between the covers of the big book.
And read it a little at a time. I love that book. I think it's the greatest love story I've ever read in my life. And I read it, and it's magic. It keeps changing. You know, I read things today. I read, you know, ten months ago. And it's different. And I love that book. And Warren is right. It answers questions you just like everything else in this program have to seek, and you'll find it sooner or later.
It will come to you. You will find it. And they told me in Cleveland about the four absolutes, honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. They told me that this should be the basis of my program. They told me that if I build my program on these four absolutes, that it would be on a rock, and not even the biggest windstorm that came along was going to be able to blow my sobriety apart,
[00:55:00]
and that there are four questions that come out of the four absolutes that make it a little bit easier to understand. And they also told me nothing is absolute, Beth. You strive for perfection. You try to do the best that you can do right now. And the four questions that come out of that, honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love, is what you are about to do and say right or wrong, is what you are about to do and say true or false, is what you are about to do and say ugly or beautiful, and how will it affect the other guy.
The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was told to attack and do in the order in which they were written, and not take them Avon lady style. You know, don't say no thank you, I don't care for four. Phooey on six. Nuts on the last half of 12. It doesn't work that way, my sponsors said. How in God's name can you do two before one? How can you do five if you haven't done four? How can you get on with the action part of it until you've made your amends and let yesterday go?
It's crazy. In the order in which they were written, those guys knew what they were doing. And my sponsors said they tactfully… Applause My sponsors said they tactfully said it in the 12 Steps. They could have written the 12 Steps. Now look you drip. You got to do the first 11 before you even tackle this thing. Before you even, you know, try to help another alcoholic. Before you try to practice the principles in your affairs.
But they didn't. They said having had a heck of a lot of growth, that's what my sponsors said, that the spiritual experience meant to a lot of people. Having had a lot of growth, we tried. And they asked her, you know, as a result of the first 11. I did, though. One thing that you guys didn't tell me, though, was that was going to be a never-ending thing. I know when I go to bed at night, which one of those steps I've left out.
I know what I haven't done in those 12 Steps. It is a way of life. It is a way of life. My sponsors said to me, you did not get sober just not to drink and just not to take a pill, dear. You got sober to live. You got sober to do the job that you obviously were supposed to have been doing all of your life. And the job that is in front of you, you will find out what that is slowly and surely. And I love those 12 Steps.
And I love the tradition. And this old-timer, this old Jerry said to me, you know, I'll tell you something. Do you get on your knees? And I said no. And he said, I would make a strong suggestion. Nobody ever told me what to do. They just made strong suggestions. They said, I strongly suggest you really read the big book because there are m-u-s-t in that big book. And Jerry said, I will make this strong suggestion that every night before you go to bed, you take off your bedroom slippers, get down on your knees, push your bedroom slippers underneath your bed, and while you're down there, say thank you.
I said to him, for what? And he said, look at you. You've been sober 24 hours. Say thank you for that. And he said, and don't worry about who you're talking to. You know, easy does it. Don't push the river. It runs by itself, you know. God, stay green, you grow, get ripe, you rot. You know, all those things old-timers say. And so I listened to him and I did it because I wanted to stay sober more and I wanted to be drunk.
And he said, and in the morning, while you're grumbling around under that bed for your bedroom slippers, say help me to make lemonade out of the lemons of life that are bounced my way today. And I did it and I do it. And I don't know when it happened. I found out who I was talking to and it's that God. And I told you about the relationship I have with him today. I don't have to get on my knees anymore.
I do it. I do it out of love and I do it out of respect. And strange things do happen to me. You know that's what's supporting me today as I'm standing on my legs here is that hairspray that I got from kneeling down and asking Ralph to get through this thing and starched up my legs. Anyway, God is a marvelous, marvelous thing in my life. Now I want to tell you something. I was told that I better practice up on the spirituality of this program.
In the spirituality of this program, because I was told that maybe something would come into my life someday that no other human being could help me with, and if I didn't have this,
[01:00:00]
I was going to go down like dynamite, and I did what she said, thank God, because the thing came into my life, and in that terrible valley, I could lean pretty heavy on my God as I understood Him, and I could really make a little bit of lemonade out of those lemons that day. I had to pour in a lot of sugar, but I made the lemonade. God is special, very special. Mary Francis, a lady in Akron, Ohio, said to me, you know, as long as you are trudging around without doing that fourth and fifth step, my dear, you are walking around with 40 pounds of potatoes on your shoulders, and you know what's going to happen to you?
It's going to get heavy, and it's going to push you right back down in the sewer that God allows you to come out of. She said to me, take your inventory, Beth, write it down, not just the stuff you did when you were drinking, go all the way back to when you were a kid. The first feeling of resentment, the first feeling of self-pity that you can muster up, the first negative attitude that you felt, and write it down, because it says to do that in that big book, and they knew what they were talking about.
Write it down. Don't leave one potato on your shoulder, she said, because potatoes smell and stink, and it might drive you right back down there, too, and so I did it to the best of my ability. I had also taken two more of those, but for the first go-around, I got rid of all I could get rid of. I found somebody I could trust, and I cut loose, and it all went, and then I could make my amends, I could humbly ask God to forgive my shortcomings and help me take them away a little bit at a time, and before when I felt like I had my fingers in the crack of the door of Alcoholics Anonymous, after I did all that, I could throw the door open, and there was the road of sobriety, and I could get on with this thing called living.
Get on with it a day at a time, right now, in every day. I do take an inventory, I told you that, every night. That's the only way my yesterday's in last night. I've got to do that. That conscious contact is really something else, and then the hard part came. To practice the principles in all my affairs, I had a terrible time taking this stuff home with me, an awful time. They didn't go to Al-Anon, they didn't go to Al-Ateen, and I'd go home from a meeting, and I'd walk through the door, here I was, the wonderful wife and mother, and I was staying away from the first drink a day at a time, and I was going to all these meetings, and I was doing, I'll watch out what you say, or you do, or I just might get drunk.
My home group has ears that hear everything all the way around the world. It didn't make any difference if I'd said that in Asia, they'd have heard about it, and they nailed me to a wall, and they said, look it, you're the only big book you've got. What are you going to do? Play that silly game, and anyway, Beth, it isn't going to work, unless you take it home. You're all they've got. Take it home, and start treating them like members of Alcoholics Anonymous, if you must, you know?
I did. I didn't know who those guys were. When I woke up, I was like with five strangers. I was living in their house. I did that. I went home from the meeting, I shook their hands, I started to, and it sort of eased the tension, and then I started trying to do the best job that I could do, and it was hard to sit on anger, and it was hard not to look at them, you know, because they do watch you. God, every time I'd get angry, you'd see them go like this, and I had to really try, really try, and a wonderful thing started to happen to me.
They started to change, and they did get better, and they are better today, all of them. They're pretty good kids, and that Bruce G. was something else, and so I took it home with me, and our home, instead of fear, was full of love and understanding, instead of resentment and caring and need for one another. My husband became not only the man that I loved, but the best friend that I have ever had in my whole life.
Never once did those people say to me, do you remember when? Never once did they bring up the yesterday. Never once did they interfere with my program. Never once did they say anything, and it took not one year, not two years, it took three
[01:05:03]
years of hard work before we started to, all of us, see some improvement. I was going by my 16-year-old son, my son was now 17, I guess he was about 14 then. Every time I'd raise my arm fast and cringe, he had poured out a fifth of my wine once to try to save my life, and I had broken that child's leg, and it took a long, long time. And it all happened that time, at a ball mound, when I knew that this child didn't hold any resentment for me anymore, because he saluted me before I pitched that final ball in the championship game, and after the game was over, he said, you know, Mother, it really doesn't make any difference if we win or we lose, as long as you're here.
He and I are fantastic friends. My oldest daughter, the one that called me today, is a very good friend of mine. She has a wonderful life. She's getting married a year from August, and she said to me, Mother, you know what a great thing it is to be able to bring Jeff into this house, and you make him feel such a part of the family, and I don't have to be afraid, Mother, where you're coming from anymore.
It's fantastic, Mom. And I can make all these plans with her, and, you know, the most wonderful thing that happened with me was the night when she got her engagement ring, and she could come up to my room at two o'clock in the morning and turn on my light and say, look at Mom, look at what's happened to me, and I could sit up and I could take her and hold her and say, I am so happy for you, Annie, and really mean it, really mean it, and it's because of you that I could do that.
Sure, God allowed me to make a decision, but who do you think reached their arms down in that pit when I put mine up and asked for help? It was you. Let me ask. You have never run ahead of me, you have never pushed me from the behind. You have been right here, and, man, have I needed that, and I need you more today than I needed you the first day I walked through those doors. You are my survival, my life.
You are everything I have. You have enabled me to say to a child when she was 18 years old and she split out, not because of what had gone on before, not because of anything else, this happened a year and a half ago, you enabled me to be able to look at that child and say to her, I love you, Linda, the door is always open. You allowed me to say that. You allowed me to act like an adult about the thing, because I do love the child, because the door is open, and Linda had used something else that came into our home that she said she couldn't stand to see happen and had gone away, and she is not on alcohol and she is not on drugs, she was just living with some creep, and I'm working on that one, but holy cow, as my values returned and as my values are returning more each day, this creep gets creepier.
But I'll tell you something, Linda is coming home. Because Linda went and talked to the minister and he said, What about your mother, what about her feelings? And Linda said, My mother has only said to me, Linda, I love you, and the doors are open. And I know she means that. She wouldn't say it unless she did. She's a member of AA and they're not allowed to lie. I have a little one by the name of John.
John would like to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but John has one problem, he wants to do it on root beer. And I said, Son, it doesn't get you into trouble. You know, it's not how much you drink, dear, or what you drink, it's how much trouble it gets you into. And John says it makes me hiccup terrible, mother. And I said, You don't need, dear, to be an alcoholic to have this way of life. He trudges off to meetings with me sometimes, they all do, they all do.
And so he had to write a report on alcoholism and he went out of the house with his great big sacks with a big book and all this literature, and the thoughts struck me like that. I said, John, what are you going to say? It's an oral report. And then he had to have all this other stuff. John says, I'm going to tell them, mama, the way it was and how it is now. I don't know.
[01:10:00]
I don't know what he told them, but he got an A+. They're all good friends. And this man, this fabulous man that I was married to, my 24th wedding anniversary would be Monday, fabulous man that I was married to emulated more courage than any other human being that I have ever known in my life. And I asked him about this time last year, I said, Bruce, you know, what is your philosophy? What is your philosophy of life?
You're hung in there, the way you live, you've always lived, you're not an alcoholic. What is it? What is your philosophy of life? And he said, you know, it's very much like yours. He said, Beth, life is a game. Life is a damn dead serious game. And we want to play to win. But he said, you know, Beth, winning isn't the point. Trying to win is the point. Trying to do the best doggone job that you can do in the nows of each day is the point.
Never letting anybody down is the point. And never letting up on what you believe in right now. And then, my dear, he said, if something comes into your life and you have to lose, you can He went out like a champion. And he went out. He went out like the champion that he was. And we were allowed to share that with him. He died last July the 21st of acute myeloid monocytic leukemia. And I will never be more grateful that I was allowed because of you and by the grace of God to have almost seven wonderful years with this man.
We made up for more time than for anything else. There's a lot of things to sobriety. It's some loudmouth lady talking a long time. I haven't even looked at my watch. I'll tell you, I can't talk at home. They all talk. I can't talk at the office. I got too much work to do. I can't talk at meetings when I go. I got to listen and take that one thing of value home. And so, and I can't, I can't talk any otherwhere.
So when I get up here, wow, watch out. Sobriety means a lot. It means music. It means people like you. It means hot fudge Sundays. It means M&M's. It means laughing and giving this old face something to do. It means looking at the sky and seeing how blue it is. God, I have never seen a grade A since I came into the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's learning to live. It's learning that, my God, we are free.
We are free. We're alive and we're sober and we're free. And to me, that is the greatest thing that could ever happen. This is why my sobriety must come first, that nothing is worth the price of my sobriety. I did bargain, yes, last year with God. In my sobriety, I bargained. I will do anything, anything, if you will go in there and perform another walking on water miracle. And it splashed through my mind like that.
Would you give me your sobriety? And the answer was no. Nobody and nothing is worth the price of my sobriety because if I am not sober, I am going to have nothing. I'm not going to have God. I'm not even going to have my life. It's got to come first, but in my sobriety and in my joy. There's a lot of other things that are important. First things first to me today. Means what? What does come first? What does come first to you, Beth G., when you're walking out of the house to go to a meeting and suddenly there's a crisis in your family?
Do you keep on walking or do you turn around and say it's going to be okay and I'm right here with you? That's what sobriety is. That's what sobriety is. Sobriety is being able to share with that family of mine the joy of this way of life.
[01:15:04]
This is the living, and this is fantastic, and it is a privilege to be sober today. I want to thank you very much for listening, and I'd like to leave you with something that's a very special thing to me. Naturally, I've collected from the Irish, you know, I'm still like that still, but it's kind of my thought and my wish for each one of you in this room, because the power that you have emulated is just fantastic.
This whole conference is fantastic. The people that I have met are fantastic, and I do want to thank Herb and the committee for allowing me to be here. It's an experience. May the road rise to meet you, and may the wind be always at your back, and may the sun shine warm upon your face, and the rain fall soft upon your field, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hands in the nows of each day.
God bless you, and thank you. God bless you.